It’s that time of year again when we love to count things down. So for this month’s newsletter, I’ve put together a top ten list called: Fascinating Facts About Your Body. I hope it will help you appreciate how amazing your body is and encourage you to take good care of it no matter how many New Years you have already celebrated.
- We take about 9 million breaths per year!!! NINE MILLION!!! In fact, if you could count without stopping, one number per second, without breaks for sleeping, eating or anything else, it would take you 104 days! That’s a LOT!!! AND we do almost all of them without even thinking about it!!!
- If stretched out, the arteries and veins in your body would cover 12,000 miles!!! That’s nearly half way around the world!!!
- There are more than 600 muscles in your body, all with a specific job to do. For example, to press a barbell over your head takes 200 of those muscles, 31 of which are in your face.
- Over the course of a 70 year life span, you will digest about 40 tons of food. Most cars weigh about ½ ton so if you think of it like that, the average person will eat the equivalent of about 80 cars over their lifetime!!! And your body will process all of it for you, taking the good and getting rid of the waste.
- The heart weighs less that one pound but beats about 40 million times per year and pumps 2.5 gallons per minute or 1,314,000 gallons per year. Wow!!! That’s one hard working muscle!!!
- Red blood cells live about 120 days and make 300,000 trips through your blood stream. That’s almost 2 trips per minute. Your blood is busy, Busy, BUSY!!!
- Your kidneys each have about a million little cells inside (called nephrons) that filter all of the stuff going through your blood. They catch any waste products that might be floating around and eliminate them from your body when you go pee.
- Nerves transmit their signals at 300 mph. That means all of this communication is happening at lightning-fast speed!!
- Your body is a little chemical factory manufacturing countless specific chemicals in specific amounts to help your body do all the amazing things it does including digest food, sleep, keep you focused, fight off infection, cry, laugh, play sports, and absolutely everything else!
- All of these functions (and every other function of your body) are controlled by the wisdom within your body. This intelligence uses the nerve system to transmit messages back and forth between your brain and your body (at lightning speed) to maintain your body in an organized state.
Be sure that you are as organized and as incredible as you can be by seeing your chiropractor regularly. Make 2017 your best year yet!!!
– Judy Campanale, DC, ACP, FCSC (hon)